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Tunnel vision is a startup killer

An entrepreneur’s job is tough – we all know that – but one of the lesser-discussed challenges we face is tunnel vision. Entrepreneurs are prone to tunnel vision because we set out sights on something and we focus so hard on getting it that we forget the other “stuff”. Like race horses, we see only the finish line, rather than everything that’s happening around us.

As entrepreneurs, we set out with a business goal: to conquer the world. Joking but we do all want a million users or a million dollars or a million followers or a million something. The problem is getting caught up in our goal and not being able to look past it which makes us miss opportunities, sacrifice quality, and drive users away. Most goals lead to other goals, and the best goals are the ones that escalate towards your startup’s mission.

When you’re chasing a million followers, you forget your users; when you’re chasing a million users, you forget your revenue; when you’re chasing a million dollars, you forget your product; when you’re chasing a million anything, you forget everything else. Of course it’s important to have goals, know your goals, chase your goals, but an entrepreneur’s job is to juggle all the goals of your startup while keeping in mind its mission, and overlooking goals can cost you big time.